ABU DHABI: Cameron Green became the most expensive player to be sold on Tuesday—for ₹25.20 crore to the Kolkata Knight Riders—during the Indian Premier League 2026 auction at the Etihad Centre in Abu Dhabi.
Chennai Super Kings and KKR were involved in an intense bidding war for the Australian all-rounder, who last played for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Heading into the auction, the Knight Riders possessed the highest purse, amounting to ₹64.30 crore, followed by CSK, which had a budget of ₹43.40 crore.
With that buy, Green became the third most expensive cricketer to be sold at the IPL auction ever, after Rishabh Pant (₹27 lakh) and Shreyas Iyer (₹26.75 lakh). Thereby, that makes him the most pricey all-rounder and foreign player in IPL history to have gone under the hammer.
Venkatesh Iyer’s name triggered deja vu for viewers as RCB and KKR, like last year, kept raising the paddle for the Madhya Pradesh all-rounder. The Bengaluru franchise eventually acquired his services for ₹7 crore.
Later, KKR returned to pick Sri Lankan fast bowler Matheesha Pathirana as its death-overs specialist for a whopping ₹18 crore.
Prashant Veer and Kartik Sharma were sold to CSK for more than 47 times their base price; they became the joint highest-priced uncapped players ever at ₹14.20 crore.
The mini-auction will see 369 players go up for sale, with the 10 franchises needing to fill 77 slots between them. Each team can have a maximum of 25 players, including eight overseas players, in its squad.